Rouault, Georges

Rouault, Georges (1871–1958). French painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and designer who created a personal style of Expressionism that gives him a highly distinctive place in modern art. He was born in Paris, the son of a cabinet-maker, and from 1885 to 1890 was apprenticed to a stained-glass maker, his work including the restoration of medieval glass; the vivid colours and strong outlines characteristic of the medium left a powerful imprint on his work. In 1891 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where with Matisse and Marquet he was a pupil of Gustave Moreau (1826–98), a brilliant and sympathetic teacher. He was Moreau's favourite pupil and became the first curator of the Musée Moreau in Paris, opened in 1903. At about the same time he underwent a psychological crisis, and although he continued to associate with the group of artists around Matisse who were later known as Fauves, he did not adopt their brilliant colours or their typical subjects; instead he painted characters such as clowns, prostitutes, and outcasts in sombre but glowing colours. These subjects expressed his hatred of cruelty, hypocrisy, and vice, depicting the ugliness and degradation of humanity with passionate conviction. His familiar cast of characters also included judges (The Three Judges, Tate Gallery, London, c. 1936), on the subject of which he said: ‘If I have made them such lamentable figures, it is doubtless because I betrayed the anguish which I feel at the sight of a human being who has to pass judgement on other men.’

Rouault's work initially disturbed the public, but he achieved financial security after Vollard became his agent in 1917 and during the 1930s he gained an international reputation; in 1937, for example, he had a one-man show at the Pierre Matisse gallery in New York, and in 1938 there was an exhibition of his prints at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He worked in various printmaking techniques, often for book illustrations commissioned by Vollard. Vollard also funded the publication of Miserere (1927), a suite of 58 prints forming a meditation on death. Rouault, who had conceived the idea for the project in 1912, himself created the captions for the prints, using phrases from the Bible. From about 1940 he devoted himself almost exclusively to religious art. In addition to his prolific output of paintings, drawings, and prints, his work also included ceramics and designs for tapestry, for stained glass, and for Diaghilev's ballet The Prodigal Son (1929), for which the music was written by Prokofiev. By the time of his death Rouault was a much honoured figure and he was given a state funeral.